KAFD Men’s and Women’s Portal Spas Proposal / WORKSBUREAU

Seen as geologic formations rising from the land, the design for the KAFD Men’s and Women’s Portal Spas by WORKSBUREAU form great shade porticos beneath long cantilevered masses. Located in two of the civic Attractor beacons of the dense urban King Abdullah Financial District of Riyadh, the project also forms the gateway to the masterplan, framing the main park as it flows into the Wadi pedestrian artery. More images and architects’ description after the break.

As a multi-modal point of interface connecting a vast carpark below and a monorail station within, it acts as a connective concourse—yet offers a complete sensory departure to patrons of the Spa. Their asymmetric opposing slopes create a sense of motion and address the diverse scales of the built context. Hovering over a textured stone base, the bodies of the buildings are dematerialized by an ethereal perforated titanium rainscreen, a performance-driven jacket with dynamic ‘tessellate’ shading. The skin transforms interior and exterior character with time and seasons, while assuring guests’ privacy. It also becomes a ‘light event’ seen from the portal, and in the fifth elevation vantage.

Within the Spas, great fissures of light open, carving verdant gardens in the heart of the buildings. Ascending this planted slope, stairs meet interludes of meditation terraces and grotto alcoves. The guest experience is choreographed on three levels as episodes of varied quietness or intensity including lounges, fitness, dining and retail, or silent relaxation space. Each is modulated in light and character from sifted light in the atria, or dim tranquility of treatment, to the brighter vaults of the upper pools.

The facades of the Men’s and Women’s Portal Spas is the first major building to implement Tessellate™ technology – a dynamic perforated screen system that regulates light and solar gain – developed by Adaptive Building Initiative (a joint venture between Hoberman Associates and Buro Happold). The buildings will be enveloped in a titanium rainscreen that incorporates the kinetic Tessellate system.

Always adjusting its opacity to respond to the environment within and outside of the spas, the skin controls light levels choreographing the guest’s experience. The A. Zahner Company helped develop its performance specifications and production plan, and fabricated a full-scale working mockup out of the color-interference titanium.